Once upon a time, the people of Afghanistan fought a battle against the British. When it looked like they were losing morale, a girl stood up in their midst and rallied the troops, clutching the Afghan flag. The fighters, empowered by the girl, fought harder and emerged victorious. The girl however, was shot by the British and died. That girl’s name? Malalai.
Over 100 years later, another Malala was born, this time in Pakistan, who, in the same way as her namesake, sought to rally her own countrymen against an oppressive force. She too was shot – but this time, Malala survived.
And so begins the film about activist Malala Yousefzhai, the now 18-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for fighting back against their laws banning girls from attending school. Just 15 years old at the time, she was flown, comatose, to the UK to make a recovery and to become one of the leading voices in the fight to help the 60 million girls globally who don’t have access to education.
The film flips between telling the story of Malala’s life now and the story of the years leading up to the attempted assasination. Now, Malala’s life is about her family, finishing her her exams, worrying about fitting in with the girls at school, teasing her brothers and fancying Brad Pitt and the cricketer Shane Watson. Oh, and visiting President Obama.
But *then, *Malala’s life was about speaking out publically against the ever-worsening opression of the Taliban regime and attending school in secret with her friends.
Much of the ‘now’ part of the film revolves around Malala’s family life. Her relationship with her father Ziauddin, who named her after the Afghan warrior and first encouraged her to pen the anonymous BBC blog about what life was like growing up as a girl under the Taliban, is lovely.
The deep bond between father and daughter is apparent and it’s he who accompanies her on the various trips around the world. Equally, time spent with Malala’s little brothers Khushal and Atal is fun. Just like any little brothers, they see Malala not as a world-famous activist and more as their ‘naughty’ older sister who teases them and does too much homework.
It’s the difference between Malala’s professional life and her school life that’s the most compelling. On the one hand, she’s speaking to the General Assembly, being introduced by Gordon Brown or waiting to hear if she’s won the Nobel Peace Prize. On the other, she’s wearing her school uniform skirt long because any shorter makes her feel uncomfortable, marvelling at the girls in her class who have boyfriends and wondering whether the other girls would ever find her ‘interesting’. A strange but lovely thing, one imagines, for someone who can’t return home for fear of being shot, to be able to worry about.
Back in the Swat valley, through a series of animated illustrations, audio clips of Fazlullah, the leader of the Taliban in the Swat Valley who ordered Malala’s assasination, and images of her once-bustling hometown of Mingora, the film tells the story of a community gradually weakening under the rule of Sharia Law.
At first, all seemed fine but gradually, rules about films, music and education were put in place, neighbours were turned against each other, and public murders of those that defied the Taliban law became commonplace.
Ziauddin, an outspoken man who owned several area schools became a public critic of the Taliban and soon, his daughter Malala joined him. The film makes use of several clips of Malala speaking publically about her community’s opressors, a tiny little girl surrounded by grown men shouting for all she’s worth into a battered microphone. On October 9, 2012, her schoolbus was attacked, and she was shot in the head.
Does the film brush over certain topics? Sure. There’s a section where Pakistani people make claims to camera that Malala is only famous because of her father; he’s the one that writes everything for her. They also criticise her for leaving the country, and them, behind. Malala’s mother, an unbelievably beautiful but quiet woman whom the family say is unhappy living in the UK where she has no friends and doesn’t speak the language also seems like she might have more to say.
But, in the long run, the reach of Malala’s work is now the most important focus. Her organisation The Malala Fund seeks to create education opportunities for girls around the world and, while in part, the film works as publicity for this, it’s publicity we welcome highly.
Sure, there's probably a darker, more political documentary to be made about Malala’s life, but this film is here to drive people to a cause that’s more important than all that – a cause that needs attention now. Because as Malala says, women cannot be ‘free’ unless they’re educated.
He Named Me Malala is in cinemas from 6 November.
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**Follow Jess on Twitter @Jess_Commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.